States Sue Administration Over Tying Disaster Aid to Elections

The federal government was sued Thursday by 25 states and the District of Columbia to keep it from withholding disaster aid if they don't follow election and immigration policies that President Trump wants enacted. At issue, Reuters reports: DHS says it will hold back 20% of certain Federal Emergency Management Agency grants—more than $1 billion in total—unless states move to hand-marked paper ballots instead of systems that rely on bar codes or QR codes, conduct manual audits of at least 5% of ballots, reconcile voter participation with votes cast, and check voter rolls against a Homeland Security database to flag noncitizens.

The federal government also wants the states to assist DHS with immigration enforcement, per the AP. The suing states, led by Rhode Island, California, Illinois, and New Jersey and mostly run by Democrats, argue the agency is overstepping, saying Congress never empowered it or FEMA to reshape election law and noting the grants weren't created for election security. FEMA counters that the rules are meant to safeguard election integrity, dismissing the challengers as "left-wing politicians." The clash comes against a backdrop of false claims of widespread voter fraud, per Reuters, even as studies continue to find such cases are rare.